Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Special election: endorsement and finance

Janelle Rettig wins the Press-Citizen endorsement. That in itself isn't much of a surprise. The P-C could have written a tepid endorsement that focused on the appointment process, but instead the tone is glowing:

For two decades, in fact, Rettig has shown rare ability for a would-be politician: She examines issues from multiple perspectives. In her work with many local and state boards and commissions, Rettig repeatedly has shown she can seek and actually find compromise and common ground.

Rettig's past experience ranges from land use planning, to civil and human rights, to environmental and conservation issues, to government openness.

There's only brief mentions of the appointment process the paper opposed, and even briefer mentions of the other two candidates.

The three candidates get their own space to make their cases. Rettig is solid, but Cardella manages to ramble even more than Jim Knapp. "The challenge before me is to string together a series of 500 words," Cardella begins, and that's kinda what she does.

Cardella has filed her campaign finance report (pdf). She reports raising $5,751. The donor list looks a lot more like a Republican Party list than a local business-conservative list. The John Balmer types seem to be sitting this one out, the way the lefties sat out the city election.